When Brett Eisner was tapped as the director of the Escape From New York remake back in April, it wasn't unreasonable to think that the casting of the new Snake Plissken was far off. In her article, Katey mentioned that Timothy Olyphant, who recently starred in Eisner's remake of The Crazies, wouldn't make for a bad Kurt Russell stand-in. We may need to burn her at the stake for being a witch because that casting has become a real possibility.
In an interview with Eisner, Movie Web brought up the subject of the Escape From New York and jokingly asked if the role of Plissken had been given to Olyphant. Eisner responded, "I love working with Timothy Olyphant, and I will be working with him again. He is an amazing actor. A talented guy. And he's incredibly funny. He needs to do a great comedy, because he is a funny guy. But I will work with him again. I can promise you that." Intrigued by the answer, the site pressed, asking for the legitimacy of Eisner's answer, to which the director said,
"Creatively, he would be great for it. We have not yet discussed internally within the studio who will play Snake Plissken. There are many factors that go into those discussions. First and foremost, obviously, is the creative one. We can't make the movie unless we get the perfect Snake Plissken, and that's a tall order. There are very few guys that could do it. He would definitely be one of the guys who could. There is no question about that."
Just like the role of MacReady in The Thing, recasting Snake Plissken is dangerous land to trespass. But while the producers behind 2011's The Thing have avoided this problem by making the film a prequel instead of a remake, Eisner and New Line Cinema are going to wade through some serious hate mail when they do eventually settle on an actor (no matter who it is). As for Olyphant, he would have to bulk up a bit and grow out his hair, but I see no reason why the man couldn't sport the coolest eyepatch in movie history.
